It's that time again. Some of you have waited literally months for a new tournament to start. Well, today your wishes have been fulfilled! Again, the rules have been revised a little and you'll notice some changes now with new divisions in effect. I have not toned down on the difficulty though. As I expressed in the 'Ideas' thread, not all, if any, of the final ideas made it through here.

Enough of talking it up! Here are the guidelines and additions for this tournament!

Tournament Rules

Character Restrictions

Choose three characters - all characters MUST be from a different class

ALL characters are to be Hardcore

Living characters must stay within ONE Act of each other

Characters can ONLY utilise two skills trees, not all three

Character Restriction Additions

There are two Hardcore divisions operating in this tournament. A 1.10 and 1.11 division that will operate separately from each other

Please notify me in this thread whether or not you are participating in a 'Self-found Grail', or if you prohibit yourself from trading with other players. Prize stashes from these players will not be collected, but as a consequence, they shall not receive any either (think of it as playing for the bragging rights, instead of the prize )

Item Restrictions

Items can be bought from ALL Acts and difficulties

Items used may ONLY be Normal, Magic or Rare

Crafted, Runic, Set and Unique items CANNOT be used on characters or mercenaries at any point except outlined by the 'Character Rewards' section below

Skills granted by an item for a skill tree that you do not use CANNOT be used if that item is equipped (IE: if a Sorc is using Fire and Cold skills, and uses an Orb with +1 to Teleport on it, the Orb can be used, but the Teleport skill cannot). This ALSO includes inherent skills from socketed items made into Runic items and 'for-all-character' skills present on such runewords as 'Enigma'

Charges are perfectly acceptable

Item Restrictions Additions
As you can see, the tournament has become more difficult now. I believe that the second tournament saw an increase in Guardians being created and that much of the difficulty was lost by allowing Runewords into normal play. Hence I have decided to really test our elite Hardcore players (and new Hardcore players alike), by only allowing Normal, Magic and Rare items for normal play

Character Rewards
As an added bonus, players are now given the option of equipping a Unique, Runic, Set or Crafted item of their choice when they:

Start a new character

Have made Destroyer

And again when they've made Conqueror

Unique, Set and Crafted items that are to be used on characters CANNOT be muled off onto a stash and then back on when the Destroyer/Conqueror milestone has been reached. However they can be placed on your remaining tournament characters for safe-keeping

The item slots available are as follows:

Headgear (includes Primal Helms and Animal Pelts)

Body Armour

Belts

Gloves

Boots

Shields (includes Paladin Shields and Necromancer Trophies)

Weapons (includes Sorceress Orbs and Amazon Bows/Javelins/Pikes)

Jewellery 1 (1 ring and 1 amulet)

Jewellery 2 (2 rings)

Mercenary Headgear (includes Primal Helms for Act V Barbarians)

Mercenary Weapons

Mercenary Armour (includes Shields for Act III Eastern Sorcerers)

But there is a catch that I shall explain. You are only allowed to choose ONE DEDICATED ITEM SLOT per milestone. Not only that, but the three item slots you plan to use MUST be decided BEFORE playing that character. For example:

A player using a Sorceress decides to choose '8. Jewellery 1' as her slot reward starting out the game, '7. Weapons' as her slot reward for making Destroyer and '2. Body Armour' when she has become a Conqueror. This now CANNOT be changed once he has commenced playing the Sorceress. If this player happens to find a Unique or Set Weapon for his Sorceress (or creates a Runic weapon or Crafts one), he MUST leave it on his Sorceress character or give it to one of his other tournament characters for temporary storage. It CANNOT be muled off onto his tournament stash and then put back on once he has made Destroyer with that Sorceress.

Character Rewards Additions

As an added bonus, players are now also able to specify an item reward slot for the beginning of play, for their travels through Normal difficulty. This should hopefully offset some of the imbalance caused by removing Runic items from normal play

Play Restrictions

All quests MUST be completed before moving onto the next Act

Quests do NOT have to be completed in order

Visiting previous difficulties is NOT allowed unless to socket or imbue items or to change map seeds

Trading is NOT allowed between different players in this tournament, but it IS allowed between your own three characters

Play Restrictions Additions

Allowing previous difficulties to be visited in order to change map seeds has now been made an acceptable practise, however visiting previous difficulties to buy items and gamble is still not acceptable

Special notes

Returning the Horadric Malus to Charsi and defeating Nihlathak are sufficient for completing those quests in Act I and Act V. It is up to you whether or not you use the imbue and engrave rewards

A time limit of 10 months applies to this tournament. There are also only 25 slots open for 1.10 and 1.11 play. I may also include a further five spaces for each version based on how quickly these slots fill up.

Please state, along with your team name and characters, what version you will be playing in and whether or not you have opted to play as part of a 'Self-found Grail' or whether you do not trade within the SP forum. Also include your choice of reward slots for every character, in every difficulty, before commencing play. Remember that these cannot be changed once you have started playing your characters! Please also note that the use of RWM and other mods are prohibited. Please ensure you are running a fresh copy of Diablo II v1.10, v1.11 or a disabled version of either with the RWM mod installed.

Please be intelligent with the items that you include for prize stashes. The items you should only be including in your final prize stashes should only be the following:

Low-level Uniques, Exceptional items and Elite items.

Please don't include several (thousand) Green Breast Plates or Green Rings, for instance. Other than that, Charms, Jewellery and Socketed Items are also a good idea to throw into the stash - I don't see too many of them when I'm sorting out things

Players who have completed play (either by dying, progressing to three Guardians or a mixture of both), must send a copy of their characters to the following email address, along with their prize stash, for verification:

Assassin (Traps/Shadow) - to be created
Amazon (Bow/Passive) - to be created
Druid (Summon/Elemental) - to be created

I'll post names and item slots before I start them. Have to think that through for a while.

Version 1.11

Questions about the reward you get when starting a char.
Do I have to equip the first item that fits into that slot or can I be picky?
Does it have to be equipped during normal?
Can I change if I find something better for the slot I have chosen?

I play to have a self found pure 1.11 grail (not like I already have a lot of items). Nevertheless I would be willing to donate a few items to the price stash if I could keep some of the stuff I find along the way.

Rewards:Turbo: '7. Weapons' for starting out, '9. Jewellery 2' for making Destroyer and '2. Body Armour' for making Conqueror.Revenge: '7. Weapons' for starting out, '9. Jewellery 2' for making Destroyer and '6. Shields' for making Conqueror.Supercharged: '8. Jewellery 1' for starting out, '6. Shields' for making Destroyer and '2. Body Armour' for making Conqueror.

Builds:Turbo: This will be my attempt to build a Frenzy Barb. I plan for 10 Shout, 20 BO, 10-15 WC, 20 Frency and 10+ Double Swing.Revenge: This will be an Avenger Paladin: 20 Vengeance, 20 Holy Shield, 20 Conviction and 20 Blessed Aim. What should happen with the remaining points will be decided when the time comes (If ever). Supercharged: This time I will try a FOrb/ChainLit Sorc. 20 FO, 20 CL, 20 LM, 20 Lit and any remaining points will go into Cold Mastery. This will be my first non-Meteorb Sorc.

Questions about the reward you get when starting a char.
Do I have to equip the first item that fits into that slot or can I be picky?
Does it have to be equipped during normal?
Can I change if I find something better for the slot I have chosen?

EDIT: I am self-found only on my HC stuff.

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1. No, you do not have to equip the first item that you come across. When you nominate an item reward slot you are merely allowing that particular slot on your character to gain access to Runic/Crafted/Set/Unique items when he has reached the milestone that slot matches (fresh character/Destroyer/Conqueror)

2. You don't have to equip a Runic/Crafted/Set/Unique item in that slot during Normal difficulty.

3. Of course you can. Say if you were wearing a Peasant's Crown War Hat on your Druid and you came across the Druid's Class Specific Unique Helm (the name escapes me for now!) - you can immediately replace the Peasant Crown with the newly found helm

Think of reward slots like this. Your character is only able to equip Normal, Magic and Rare items in tournament gameplay. Reward slots allow one slot on your character to then equip Runic/Crafted/Set/Unique equipment when he/she has started a new character/reached Destroyer/reached Conqueror.

Think of reward slots as a key to unlock Runic/Crafted/Set/Unique items

As I collect a grail it seems I can't participate in this for the prize stash, so can I use SC characters (until first death)?

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Well, you can still participate in the tournament, it is just that any items you find will belong to you in the end! It doesn't mean that you will not find any good items. For example, in the first T.W.D, I found and contributed a Grandfather Sword to the prize stash. In T.W.D II I found and put towards the prize stash a Cranium Basher.

In the end though, it is up to you. You are more than welcome to start an exhibition team if you wish

Well, you can still participate in the tournament, it is just that any items you find will belong to you in the end! It doesn't mean that you will not find any good items. For example, in the first T.W.D, I found and contributed a Grandfather Sword to the prize stash. In T.W.D II I found and put towards the prize stash a Cranium Basher.

In the end though, it is up to you. You are more than welcome to start an exhibition team if you wish

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I think I'm being a bit slow, sorry! If I start a HC vanillia team, keep grail items but give the rest to the prize stash, would I be able to participate for the prize stash? If so, I'll play HC, if not, I'll play SC.

I think I'm being a bit slow, sorry! If I start a HC vanillia team, keep grail items but give the rest to the prize stash, would I be able to participate for the prize stash? If so, I'll play HC, if not, I'll play SC.

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Ahh I understand now. Unfortunately, it can only be done one way or another. The big hook for this tournament is that there are usually a lot of big items in the prize pool at the end of it. Allowing some items from players, but not bigger ones that they'd wish to keep kind of defeats the purpose. Sorry it has to be that way, but feel free to start a SC team for exhibition purposes!

*I will still donate some items to the prize stash, even if I'm not taking anything.

For those interested, here are the planned builds:
Leela - MA/passive zon. I still feel bad that I killed off Clarissa in the Met tourney.
Tycho - Lightning/Frost ranger.
Durandal - Standard summoning necro. I figure I have to try one some time...

Just some questions/clarifications:
(1) Are CtC items unrestricted?
(2) Can you go the town of the next Act, and still be considered within one Act? (For example, 2 of my characters are in Act 2, and the third character defeats Meph, can they wait in Act 4 for the others to catch up? If they are allowed to do this, would it be safe to assume that the character would not be allowed to shop in that act until the other characters catch up?